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Once 70-degree temperatures take hold, nostalgia for those seemingly endless sweltering days and salty breezes at the beach sets in. This tropical Singapore girl starts yearning for spring, which is just too many months away.

This year, however, the husband — looking out for his own mental well-being, no doubt — has a solution for the seasonal bitchiness moodiness. "The new seating area at the Red Hook Lobster Pound appears to be open," he says one day.

Instantly, the air brightens. As soon as we can plan it, we're on a bus to Red Hook, racing toward a lunch of lobster rolls, plump and buttery…

There’s an interesting story in Singapore’s Straits Times today about foreign eateries trying to bring authentic takes on their native cuisines to Singapore. French boulangerie Le Grenier à Pain, for example, apparently stuck to its crusty baguettes even though Singaporeans typically favor softer versions that local bakeries serve up. Ditto for Quiznos and its authenticity. (Yes, this article actually cites the American food-court sandwich chain in its roundup.)

Nonetheless, there are some Singaporeans who disagree with this business strategy — one is quoted as saying that restaurants should take local preferences into account since “the customer picks what he likes most, whether or not it’s true to the original taste.”

The story made me think of the tale a friend recently told me of taking his Beijing girlfriend to Italy. There, she sniffed at the way Italians do Italian pasta dishes, finding them lacking when compared with the versions she’s had in China.

Sure, cuisines get altered all the time when they migrate from country to country — ingredients are added, steps are subtracted. But what happens when the tweaked, polyglot product ends up being what people believe to be authentic?